Women in Technology
This is a rallying cry you hear quite often: that we need more women to enter technology-related fields. I made a joke about this a couple of years ago on Twitter. Naturally, I was just being silly on there; I personally have no problem with more women entering the field...but pushing for women in tech, as an endgame, seems arbitrary, and can definitely be problematic in its own right.
I recognize this as being a massive problem. Women are chronically underrepresented in the so-called STEM fields, which are Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Because I'm a software developer, and I've been active in this field for the last 10 years, I'm going to make that the focus of this post.
Occasionally, you see campaigns on Kickstarter, like this one, that are designed to engage and interest young girls in technology-related fields. The question arises: how much responsibility do we, as a society, have for actively pushing young women towards careers in programming? How much should parents be doing to push their daughters to explore career paths that defy the gender stereotypes? How much effort and resources should the educational system expend trying to address this?
I have absolutely no idea how to answer these kinds of questions. At first glance, I'd fall back on my own limited knowledge and say, "Not nearly enough." And that's probably true. As a society, I don't believe we do enough to encourage young people with unique interests or gifts to explore them, particularly when they fall outside of generally accepted cultural norms. Gender stereotypes play a role.
But I don't think it makes much sense to start discussing this part of the issue, and its myriad nuances, until you address the real problem that exists downstream: attrition. Namely, women who enter programming fields usually don't stick around.
Why? Do some Googling, and you will find that what women encounter after they've entered programming fields in their workplaces and the surrounding culture is an extremely serious problem.
As a male in a male-dominated profession, I cannot pretend to understand this problem. I'll offer this: my first job out of college was as a corporate accountant at a small manufacturing concern in Detroit. While both of the people I reported to were male, the rest of the department, with one exception, was a cubicle sea populated entirely by women, most of whom were at least 10 years older than me. I'm the kind of person who struggles to find common ground for conversation even amongst people who share my interests. While this problem gradually abated as I grew through my 20's, the early years I spent at this company felt isolating. People were certainly friendly; in hindsight, it was a warm and welcoming environment that I happened to luck into. But I struggled to feel comfortable in group settings. It wasn't a job where I ever managed to feel like I had found my place, socially speaking.
The comparisons here are weak, at best. The issue of women in technology is based on exclusion, on being made to feel ashamed of, or actively rejected because of, who you are. That's the problem I believe women encounter in technology workplaces. I never felt this way in my first job. The frequent awkward silences dropping between me and others, and the lack of a sense of belonging, might have made me feel uncomfortable, but it doesn't equal discrimination. If anything at all, it gives me a slight appreciation for what it means to view things with a sense that you're on the social periphery. I've tried to carry this with me since then.
My first few programming jobs were at smaller companies, usually around a dozen people or so. I was surrounded by people who were roughly my age, and who all shared an active interest in the thing that I love to do most: write dat code. We all wanted to build the things for people; this was a wonderful switch from my first job, where I just crunched the numbers on behalf of the people who were actually building the things.
My first programming job at a larger company, with an engineering department numbering in the dozens, truly was a shock by comparison. In a company this big, an inevitable social phenomenon arises: the clique. I'm not a big fan of the clique. I prefer to engage and connect with people as individuals. When I come across a group, I'm more interested in listening to what each individual is contributing, and watching the conversational ball bounce around between people. I'd guess that anyone watching me from afar would see my head dart around the group the way a cat's head does when it's stalking a laser pointer dot.
Part of this is just plain old nervousness. But I'm also the kind of person who prefers to slink elusively between groups, largely to maintain my ability to see all the individuals for who they are and not as a member of this group or that one. It also helps me keep perspective on the larger context in which all of these cliques exist. I eschew joining any clique on a sustained basis simply because cliques can be, by their very nature, exclusionary. They are natural, and yes, in large settings they are most certainly necessary, but I fear their unintended consequences.
Fortunately, I don't think I've ever been at a company where I witnessed active discrimination against women, or even subtle comments that could have been considered exclusionary. I've never had to stand up to anything that I considered to be wrong. Truthfully, stating this fact in writing just makes me hope that I haven't missed any opportunity to do so; it's so much easier to remain silent and scrub your memory after the fact.
What I've tried to do then, on some level that exists below my conscious awareness, is to avoid the risk that I'll somehow passively contribute to the problem. I've worked among many groups of programmers before, and yes, they're almost always all men. The problem is simple: when a group of all men (or all women) congeals, certain types of discussions naturally emerge from these groups. I'm not sure you can avoid this. The behavior that emerges is far from the extreme of the "brogrammer" stereotype, but when people fall into these groups, they naturally adapt certain conversational topics and rhythms. These patterns become habits, and they carry over into other contexts in which not all of the people present are men.
As computer programmers, we are not being mindful with enough vigilance about what we are saying.
So, in any setting related to my profession, I remain on the fringes, occasionally sticking my head up and offering some question, insight, or dumb joke. The downside is that people might come to see you as cold and aloof (which I can be), or they believe that you're not a team player (which I am). And not everyone can do this; in normal group dynamics, someone has to take charge and lead the conversation to make stuff happen.
So what are we to do? I decided to write this post because I recently read Jimmy Carter's book A Call to Action. In it, Mr. Carter talks about how women worldwide are oppressed, and the acts of violence that are committed against them, in cultures where this is acceptable, overlooked by legal systems, and often justified by religious scripture. Many of the stories in this book shook me to the core; there were parts of it that I had trouble reading.
After the fact, I still have trouble accepting that the injustices that happen against women are as pervasive and as severe as they are. Is the human race still this daft? Women comprise half of the population. In the book, Mr. Carter mentions that men should not just be turning a blind eye to this kind of thing because we're not affected by it; we should do something. This resonated with me, and I'm still considering how I, given my particular skills, could contribute to this fight.
This is difficult, because I'm skilled as a computer programmer, and I tend to work best independently; I have no idea what you can or should do in order to bring about social change on a larger scale. The only thing I've come to so far is that I can bring the fight to where I am. We can all do this.
If you work in technology, or any STEM field, go read Carter's book. Perhaps this will sensitize us to the issue. Recommend or give a copy of it to your sexist boss or co-worker, if you have one. He doesn't talk about discrimination against women in technology in particular, but the examples of violence against women are awful enough that it will jar your awareness of the horrors of this kind of discrimination to the surface of your conscious mind. I'd like to say that I know we're better than this, but we're not. I know we can be.
I recognize this as being a massive problem. Women are chronically underrepresented in the so-called STEM fields, which are Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Because I'm a software developer, and I've been active in this field for the last 10 years, I'm going to make that the focus of this post.
Occasionally, you see campaigns on Kickstarter, like this one, that are designed to engage and interest young girls in technology-related fields. The question arises: how much responsibility do we, as a society, have for actively pushing young women towards careers in programming? How much should parents be doing to push their daughters to explore career paths that defy the gender stereotypes? How much effort and resources should the educational system expend trying to address this?
I have absolutely no idea how to answer these kinds of questions. At first glance, I'd fall back on my own limited knowledge and say, "Not nearly enough." And that's probably true. As a society, I don't believe we do enough to encourage young people with unique interests or gifts to explore them, particularly when they fall outside of generally accepted cultural norms. Gender stereotypes play a role.
But I don't think it makes much sense to start discussing this part of the issue, and its myriad nuances, until you address the real problem that exists downstream: attrition. Namely, women who enter programming fields usually don't stick around.
Why? Do some Googling, and you will find that what women encounter after they've entered programming fields in their workplaces and the surrounding culture is an extremely serious problem.
As a male in a male-dominated profession, I cannot pretend to understand this problem. I'll offer this: my first job out of college was as a corporate accountant at a small manufacturing concern in Detroit. While both of the people I reported to were male, the rest of the department, with one exception, was a cubicle sea populated entirely by women, most of whom were at least 10 years older than me. I'm the kind of person who struggles to find common ground for conversation even amongst people who share my interests. While this problem gradually abated as I grew through my 20's, the early years I spent at this company felt isolating. People were certainly friendly; in hindsight, it was a warm and welcoming environment that I happened to luck into. But I struggled to feel comfortable in group settings. It wasn't a job where I ever managed to feel like I had found my place, socially speaking.
The comparisons here are weak, at best. The issue of women in technology is based on exclusion, on being made to feel ashamed of, or actively rejected because of, who you are. That's the problem I believe women encounter in technology workplaces. I never felt this way in my first job. The frequent awkward silences dropping between me and others, and the lack of a sense of belonging, might have made me feel uncomfortable, but it doesn't equal discrimination. If anything at all, it gives me a slight appreciation for what it means to view things with a sense that you're on the social periphery. I've tried to carry this with me since then.
My first few programming jobs were at smaller companies, usually around a dozen people or so. I was surrounded by people who were roughly my age, and who all shared an active interest in the thing that I love to do most: write dat code. We all wanted to build the things for people; this was a wonderful switch from my first job, where I just crunched the numbers on behalf of the people who were actually building the things.
My first programming job at a larger company, with an engineering department numbering in the dozens, truly was a shock by comparison. In a company this big, an inevitable social phenomenon arises: the clique. I'm not a big fan of the clique. I prefer to engage and connect with people as individuals. When I come across a group, I'm more interested in listening to what each individual is contributing, and watching the conversational ball bounce around between people. I'd guess that anyone watching me from afar would see my head dart around the group the way a cat's head does when it's stalking a laser pointer dot.
Part of this is just plain old nervousness. But I'm also the kind of person who prefers to slink elusively between groups, largely to maintain my ability to see all the individuals for who they are and not as a member of this group or that one. It also helps me keep perspective on the larger context in which all of these cliques exist. I eschew joining any clique on a sustained basis simply because cliques can be, by their very nature, exclusionary. They are natural, and yes, in large settings they are most certainly necessary, but I fear their unintended consequences.
Fortunately, I don't think I've ever been at a company where I witnessed active discrimination against women, or even subtle comments that could have been considered exclusionary. I've never had to stand up to anything that I considered to be wrong. Truthfully, stating this fact in writing just makes me hope that I haven't missed any opportunity to do so; it's so much easier to remain silent and scrub your memory after the fact.
What I've tried to do then, on some level that exists below my conscious awareness, is to avoid the risk that I'll somehow passively contribute to the problem. I've worked among many groups of programmers before, and yes, they're almost always all men. The problem is simple: when a group of all men (or all women) congeals, certain types of discussions naturally emerge from these groups. I'm not sure you can avoid this. The behavior that emerges is far from the extreme of the "brogrammer" stereotype, but when people fall into these groups, they naturally adapt certain conversational topics and rhythms. These patterns become habits, and they carry over into other contexts in which not all of the people present are men.
As computer programmers, we are not being mindful with enough vigilance about what we are saying.
So, in any setting related to my profession, I remain on the fringes, occasionally sticking my head up and offering some question, insight, or dumb joke. The downside is that people might come to see you as cold and aloof (which I can be), or they believe that you're not a team player (which I am). And not everyone can do this; in normal group dynamics, someone has to take charge and lead the conversation to make stuff happen.
So what are we to do? I decided to write this post because I recently read Jimmy Carter's book A Call to Action. In it, Mr. Carter talks about how women worldwide are oppressed, and the acts of violence that are committed against them, in cultures where this is acceptable, overlooked by legal systems, and often justified by religious scripture. Many of the stories in this book shook me to the core; there were parts of it that I had trouble reading.
After the fact, I still have trouble accepting that the injustices that happen against women are as pervasive and as severe as they are. Is the human race still this daft? Women comprise half of the population. In the book, Mr. Carter mentions that men should not just be turning a blind eye to this kind of thing because we're not affected by it; we should do something. This resonated with me, and I'm still considering how I, given my particular skills, could contribute to this fight.
This is difficult, because I'm skilled as a computer programmer, and I tend to work best independently; I have no idea what you can or should do in order to bring about social change on a larger scale. The only thing I've come to so far is that I can bring the fight to where I am. We can all do this.
If you work in technology, or any STEM field, go read Carter's book. Perhaps this will sensitize us to the issue. Recommend or give a copy of it to your sexist boss or co-worker, if you have one. He doesn't talk about discrimination against women in technology in particular, but the examples of violence against women are awful enough that it will jar your awareness of the horrors of this kind of discrimination to the surface of your conscious mind. I'd like to say that I know we're better than this, but we're not. I know we can be.